Apparatus, system and method for selecting a media enhancement

ABSTRACT

The present invention is and includes a device, system and method for providing an image enhancement widget. The device, system and method include a javascript component that, upon execution, obtains at least one subject of primary content on a networked page, and at least one permission for enhancement of the primary content, ones of a plurality of content produced remotely from the javascript component and according to the javascript component, and an enhancement widget. The enhancement widget may be a flash widget.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This is a continuation-in-part application of U.S. application Ser. No.12/856,032, filed Aug. 13, 2010, entitled Apparatus, System and Methodfor a Media Enhancement Widget and claims priority to U.S. ApplicationSer. No. 61/363,410, filed on Jul. 12, 2010 and entitled Apparatus,System and Method for a Media Enhancement Widget. This applicationclaims the benefit of priority to U.S. application Ser. No. 11/981,837,filed Oct. 31, 2007 and entitled Advertising Request and Rules-BasedContent Provision Engine, System and Method; and to U.S. applicationSer. No. 11/981,646, filed Oct. 31, 2007 and Engine, System And MethodFor Generation Of Brand Affinity Content; and to U.S. Application Ser.No. 61/312,458, filed on Mar. 10, 2010 and entitled Apparatus, Systemand Method for a Media Enhancement Widget; and to U.S. Application Ser.No. 61/368,283, filed Jul. 28, 2010 entitled Apparatus, System andMethod for a Media Enhancement Widget; each of which applications isincorporated herein by reference as if set forth herein in itsrespective entirety.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention is directed to media enhancement and, moreparticularly, to an apparatus, system and method for a media enhancementwidget.

2. Description of the Background

In typical current advertising embodiments, although sponsorship andpromotional media is an 80 billion dollar industry in the United States,very little sponsorship and promotional advertising is engaged in“on-line,” that is, in networked telecommunications environments such asInternet, extranet, intranet, satellite, wired, wireless, includingad-hoc wireless, and similar communication networks, which employcomputers, personal digital assistants, conference phones, cellulartelephones and the like. In fact, it its estimated that only 250 milliondollars in on-line advertising using sponsorship and promotionalmaterial is made available in the United States, or 0.31% of theaforementioned 80 billion dollar industry.

Further, the inefficiencies of obtaining sponsorship and promotionalspots in advertising drastically limit the universe of availablesponsors and promoters, at least in that, if procurement of a brand cantake several months, it stands to reason that advertisers will endeavorto obtain only those sponsors that the advertisers can be assured willhave a positive public image and likeability over the course of manymonths. Needless to say, this drastically limits the universe ofavailable sponsors. For example, it is estimated that, in themulti-billion dollar athletic sponsorship advertising industry, 95% ofsponsorship dollars are spent hiring the top 5% of athletes to becomesponsors. As such, very few sponsorships are made available by the priorart to less desirable athletes, although such athletes may be lessdesirable for any of a number of reasons, at least some of which reasonsare unrelated to likeability or negative image. For example, a baseballplayer may be a perennial all-star, but may play in a “small market,”and as such may not be deemed to fall within the top 5% ofathlete-sponsors. Consequently, although the exemplary player may bevery popular in certain areas or with certain demographics, in the priorart it is very unlikely this particular exemplary athlete will obtainmuch in the way of sponsorships.

Needless to say, the typically lengthy mechanism that precludessponsorship from occurring on-line thus, as discussed above, drasticallylimits the available universe of sponsors. Further, such currentmechanisms fail to take into account that certain sponsors may have awillingness to engage in certain sponsorships at certain times, withrespect to certain products, in certain geographic locales, or incertain editorial or social contexts, or may be desired as sponsors atcertain times, or only in certain geographic locales, or only withregard to certain products, or only in editorial or social contexts.

For example, in the sponsorship industry, it is well established thatfamous actors in the United States may market products internationallythat they do not wish to lend sponsorship to in the United States.Additionally, because news with regard to United States athletes oractors, for example, may break more quickly in the United States, thosesame athletes or actors may experience a lengthened time of availabilityfor desirable sponsorship in other countries. For example, a baseballplayer may come to be suspected of steroid use in the United States,thereby limiting his desirability as a sponsor for products in theUnited States, but may nonetheless continue to be popular in Japan untilor if such steroid use is definitively proven. Thereby, an inability toefficiently provide for that baseball player to become a sponsor inJapan, where that baseball player may not normally allow for hislikeness to be used in sponsorship, may seriously curtail sponsorshipopportunities for that baseball player, as well as curtailingadvertising possibilities for Japanese advertisers.

Thus, the need exists for an apparatus, system and method to allow forassessment of optimal sponsors for particular markets, in particulargeographies, and in particular contexts, and that provides increasedsponsorship and advertising opportunities.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is and includes a device, system and method forproviding an image enhancement widget. The device, system and methodinclude a javascript component that, upon execution, obtains at leastone subject of primary content on a networked page, and at least onepermission for enhancement of the primary content, ones of a pluralityof content produced remotely from the javascript component and accordingto the javascript component, and an enhancement widget. The enhancementwidget may be a flash widget, and may include ones of the plurality ofcontent overlayed upon the primary content to provide a permittedenhancement of the primary content on the networked page. Theenhancement widget may preferably provide the enhancement withoutobscuring at least other than the primary content of the networked page.

Thus, the present invention provides an apparatus, system and method toallow for assessment of optimal sponsors for particular markets, inparticular geographies, and in particular contexts, and that providesincreased sponsorship and advertising opportunities.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Understanding of the disclosure will be facilitated by consideration ofthe following detailed description of the embodiments; taken inconjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like numerals referto like parts and in which:

FIG. 1 is a block diagram that illustrates the system of engines inaccordance with the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram that illustrates a metrics engine inaccordance with the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating a networked enhancement system;

FIG. 4A is a block diagram illustrating components of an enhancementwidget in accordance with the present invention;

FIG. 4B is an embodiment of a metadata selection system for theenhancement widget of FIG. 4A;

FIG. 5 is an illustration of an enhancement widget in accordance withthe present invention;

FIG. 6 is an illustration of an enhancement widget in accordance withthe present invention;

FIG. 7 is an illustration of an enhancement widget in accordance withthe present invention;

FIG. 8 is an illustration of an enhancement widget in accordance withthe present invention;

FIG. 9 is an illustration of an enhancement widget in accordance withthe present invention;

FIG. 10 is an illustration of an enhancement widget in accordance withthe present invention;

FIG. 11 is an illustration of an enhancement widget in accordance withthe present invention;

FIG. 12 is an illustration of an enhancement widget in accordance withthe present invention;

FIG. 13 is an illustration of an enhancement widget in accordance withthe present invention; and

FIG. 14 is an illustration of an enhancement widget in accordance withthe present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

It is to be understood that the figures and descriptions of the presentinvention have been simplified to illustrate elements that are relevantfor a clear understanding of the present invention, while eliminating,for the purposes of clarity, many other elements found in typicalcomputing apparatuses, systems and methods. Those of ordinary skill inthe art will recognize that other elements are desirable and/or requiredin order to implement the present invention. However, because suchelements are well known in the art, and because they do not facilitate abetter understanding of the present invention, a discussion of suchelements is not provided herein.

Further, the elements and actions discussed herein may preferably beembodied in computing hardware, and may be operable over one or morecomputing networks, such as at one or more nodes of a computing network.Thus, aspects of the present invention may be associated with one ormore computer storage mechanisms, and may be executed by one or morecomputing processors.

It is generally accepted that advertising and/or creative (hereinafterreferred to as “ad,” “creative,” or “content”) having the highest impacton the desired consumer base includes endorsements, sponsorships, oraffiliations from those persons, entities, or the like from whom thetargeted consumers seek guidance, or about whom the target customersseek news. As such, the desirability of providing content, such as anad, or content enhancement; associated with a particular talent may bebased on the endorser's knowledge of particular goods or in a particularindustry, the frame of the endorser, the respect typically accorded aparticular endorser or sponsor, the use of the endorser in associationwith news, gossip, or the like, and other similar factors. As usedherein, such content may be provided, for example, in association withcontent regarding a particular good or service, an actor, actress, anathlete, a famous person, a subject of an artistic, audio, visual,and/or audiovisual work, and/or an actual endorsement of the use of aproduct.

At present, there is a need for a platform or engine to allow for thequerying, such as a searching and/or requesting, for content associatedwith a talent or brand, the return, responsive to a search and/orresponsive to a recommendation, either manually or automatically, ofcontent responsive to the query, and the fulfillment or delivery of thecontent, such as in association with other primary content. In apreferred embodiment, the delivery of the content may be in the form of,for example, a widget that serves to provide additional content thatenhances the primary content.

More specifically, and as illustrated in FIG. 1, the system 5 of thepresent invention may provide a query engine 10, whereby a user mayinquire, such as by a search or request, for talent fitting certaincategories, and/or for content associated with particular talent. Thepresent invention may further provide a recommendation engine 12, whichmay be and/or include a server 13, such as a talent server, wherein therecommendation engine returns results responsive to the inquiry enteredvia query engine 10. Finally, a fulfillment engine 14 may enable thecontent for delivery, such as preparing the content returned byrecommendation engine in a particular template, format, widget, or thelike.

Thus, query engine, 10 may be a search interface, a list interface, aseries of selectable drop downs, a request for enhancement received froma third party site, or the like. Recommendation engine 12 may include,and/or have accessible thereto, a content vault 20, having residenttherein a plurality of content categorically associated with, orassociated on a one-to-one basis with, talent and brands. For example,content in the vault may include text, such as quotes, audio, video,pictures, highlights, or the like, and such content may have limitedavailability categorized by time, location, product, context, service,or the like. The recommendation engine may additionally generate and/oraccumulate metrics, such as for association with talent in the vault,and therefore may issue scores, rankings, or the like.

The fulfillment engine 14 may provide one or more templates for thecreation of sponsored advertisements, or for the association of contentwith other, primary content, and may thus provide content for delivery,such as from the content vault. The fulfillment engine may, based ondirect or redirect delivery, deliver the content. The fulfillment enginemay formulate, or may direct the formulation at a third party site, thecontent into a widget enhancement for third party content, as discussedfurther hereinthroughout.

As referenced hereinabove, the recommendation engine may provide metricsfor sponsoring brands and talent. Such metrics may be gauged in anynumber of ways, certain of which will be apparent to those skilled inthe art in light of the disclosure herein. For example, as illustratedin FIG. 2, positive 110 and negative 112 mentions of brands 114 may betracked, such as by comparison of those brands with predetermined setsand/or subsets of “good” and “bad” keywords 120 for association withthose sponsoring brands. Thereby, valuation may be assigned to certainkeywords in the present invention, and the value of certain sponsoringbrands may be tracked, based on association with those keywords, overtime, in certain geographies, in certain markets, in certain contexts,and/or with regard to certain products or services, and the like.Keywords may, of course, be “good” to be associated with, meaning suchkeywords are indicative of positive associations with the sponsoringbrand, “bad” to be associated with, meaning such keywords are indicativeof negative associations with the sponsoring brand, or “neutral.”

In an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, a football playeris mentioned in association with a particular keyword. The keywordassociation may be assigned a +1 to +10 rating for a positive keywordassociative mention, or a −1 to a −10 rating for a negative keywordassociation. Additionally, if the associated keyword is flagged forassociation with the sponsoring brand searched, but in actuality doesnot apply for any one of a number of reasons, such as an unreliablesource or an actual reference to a different party, the association maybe marked with a N/A, for example. Such associations and keyword ratingof mentions may be performed automatically, or, upon flagging of aparticular sponsorship brand, may be performed manually. Manualsearchers may, needless to say, receive training in order to useconsistent numerical ratings for associative mentions. Further, manualsearchers may receive retraining such as wherein, for example, 100searchers rated a particular mention or series of mentions as a +5. Insuch a case, such mentions or similar mentions may be repeatedlyre-routed to a particular searcher-in-trainer until that searcher intraining begins to rate such mentions within a predetermined acceptablevariation of +5.

Thereby, a brand or talent may have associated therewith a “heat index,”wherein the greater the total positive rating for all keywords trackedin all markets tracked may constitute how “hot” a sponsor is globally,and similarly a total negative rating would track how “cold” aparticular sponsoring brand was. This heat index may, for example, be orbecome part of a widget enhancement. Needless to say, the above isexemplary in nature only, and similarly tracking could occur not only ona positive or negative association basis, but additionally on ageographic, product, service, context, or other basis. For example, theaforementioned “hot” and “cold” rating system may be used to draw ageographic “heat map,” wherein the rating of a sponsoring brand inparticular geographic markets may be laid out on a map illustrating thehotness or coldness of the sponsoring brand uniquely in each geographicmarket tracked.

More specifically, a brand or talent may have associated therewith athreshold rating, such as to provide a baseline of different levels todifferent talents having varied achievements over lengthy time periods.For example, a talent may have an achievement score as part of a “heat”score, wherein the achievement score may be an awards score. Moreparticularly, a particular baseball player may be rated on a score scaleof 100 for “heat” or “positive rating”. The player may receive 1 pointfor each All-Star appearance, 3 points for each Most Valuable PlayerAward, 1 point for every 3 years played, 1 point for a playoffappearance, and 10 points for election to the Hall of Frame, and thesepoints may be permanent to each player, or may be assigned a decayfactor that lowers the awards points over time. This score may be addedat all times to the tracked score for mentions of that player on theaforementioned 100 point scale.

By way of example, the enhancement widget may be provided forassociation with a reference to a particular subject of interest, andsuch widget may provide, for example, metrics associated with thatsubject of interest. Such a widget may allow for the provision ofcertain enhanced media, in the form of secondary content to the primarycontent related to the subject of interest, as is understood to thoseskilled in the pertinent arts. The enhanced media may includeadvertising for association with the primary content, that is, forassociations with the subject of interest. The widget content may thusbe located responsive to query engine 10, may be content obtained fromthe vault by recommendation engine, and the widget may be formulated viafulfillment engine 14.

In accordance with the recommendation engine, a recommended imageenhancement widget may provide website providers and publishers withcontextually relevant content for items featured in, for example,editorial images. The widget, such as upon discovering an enhanceableimage, may use the enhanceable image as a background to deliver thecontextually related content without impacting the layout or othercontent of the subject website. Conversely, the contextual linking ofthe enhancement widget to other aspects on the page may allow for use ofthe “real estate” on the page in which the enhancement resides by thepublisher to mine not only the use of the publisher's site, but also theuse of the enhancement widget.

Further, the ability to deliver the widget in the instant invention mayprovide a network of, for example, advertising inventory. As such, theimage enhancement widget may be recommended by the recommendationengine, and/or may include, or be linked to, content in the vault.

More specifically, FIG. 3 illustrates a networked embodiment 301 forproviding enhanced content in accordance with the present invention. Asdiscussed hereinthroughout, the enhanced content may be or include, forexample, a widget, such as a Flash widget or multiple widgets, such asmultiple Flash widgets. As illustrated in FIG. 3, a networked embodimentmay include an enhancement decision engine 303, having communicativelyconnected thereto at least one user as discussed hereinthroughout, atleast one content producer 305, at least one applicationprovider/developer 307, and, in certain embodiments, a data engine 309for collecting and distributing data with regard to third parties, suchas popularity data with regard to the subject of a picture to beenhanced, as discussed hereinabove. The data engine may include, forexample, one or more of the engines discussed and illustrated in FIG. 1.

More specifically, a user may be, for example, a user of a particularwebsite, and the user may have preferences with regard to the user'suse, such as preferences in the form of cookies, a profile, or the like.The enhancement provided by the enhancement engine may preferably takeinto account the user's preferences.

The content producer may produce content for production to one or moreof the users. Such content may include, for example, video content,audio content, audio-visual content, data content, or the like, and suchcontent may be received by the user using one or more applications. Theapplications/application developers/producers illustrated in FIG. 3 mayprovide the applications whereby the content produced by the contentproducers is received. Such applications may, for example, be indicatedby the aforementioned user preferences, may be indicated by the websiteon which the enhancement engine is to make the enhancement, may beindicated by the content producer or the type of content produced, orthe like.

As discussed above, the data engine may provide relevant data withrespect to third parties, such as parties illustrated in or by contenton the subject website that is to be enhanced by the enhancement engine.Such third party data may include, for example, access to the sameimages that are produced on the subject website to be enhanced, such asto allow for the enhancement engine to expand, shrink, repeat, orotherwise modify a picture for enhancement, data on the use of socialwebsites by the subject of the content to be enhanced, local, regional,national, or international data on the popularity or frequency ofmentions of the subject of the content to be enhanced, or the like, asdiscussed further hereinbelow with respect to FIGS. 5-14.

The enhancement engine discussed herein throughout may first make ajudgment as to whether or not content on a particular website iseligible for enhancement. This question is answered by the enhancementengine through the making of a series of four inquiries, labeled hereinas Inquiry A as between the enhancement engine and the content producer,Inquiry B as between the enhancement engine and the user, Inquiry C asbetween the enhancement engine and the application developers, andInquiry D as between the enhancement engine and the third party dataengine. Inquiry A may include, for example, the subject or type ofcontent produced by the content producer. For example, Inquiry A mayreturn information that the subject of the content is Tiger Woods, aFord car, a particular key word, or a frame or frames of video. InquiryB may include user-centric data, such as media type, device type of theuser, application requested by the user, preferences indicated for theuser, and the like. Inquiry C may indicate which of a set of availableapplications the user prefers, which application the content produced orrequested requires, or which application is best indicated forproduction in accordance with a particular business model, such as whichapplication costs the least, to produce, or has offered the greatestpayment in exchange for being produced, or the like.

Needless to say, particular data or media type may be necessary forimplementation of particular applications responsive to Inquiry C, and alack of this data in accordance with Inquiry D or Inquiry A, or anincompatible media type in accordance with Inquiry A, B, or D, maypreclude production of a particular application in accordance withInquiry C. In such a circumstance, the incompatible application shouldnot be produced by the enhancement engine in accordance with Inquiry C.Inquiry C may additionally produce other responsive information inaccordance with production of a particular application, such as thesize, form, wrapping, or manner of enhancement to be produced by theapplication upon instantiation, or the like.

Finally, Inquiry D may access third party data relevant to theenhancement produced by the enhancement engine. Such third party datamay be relevant to the subject of the content for which the enhancementis to be produced, or the like. The third party data engine alongInquiry D may produce third party data temporally, that is, as a lastsecond bind to the enhancement, or as a prebind responsive to theproduction of particular applications along Inquiry C or Inquiry A, forexample.

In an exemplary embodiment of an application selection, discussed withrespect to FIG. 3; a female user may be present on the New York Timeswebsite. As such, the enhancement may be, aware of information withrespect to the particular user, including the interests of the userand/or the geography of the user, for example, the website on which theuser resides, and the subject of content then in view of the user on thesubject website. Based on this information, and the availability ofnumerous applications, the enhancement engine may select, such as for alast second bind, what application to load to best meet the interests ofthe user, and what third party data to draw on to make the best use ofthe selected application in light of the content produced to the userand the user preferences, for example. This stands in stark contrast tothe current art with respect to, for example, smart phone usage, whereinan application is selected for recommendation to a user because thatapplication is among the most frequently downloaded, or because thatapplication costs a certain amount of money to purchase, for example.

More specifically, application sets may be available in particularcategories, such as is known in the available art. For example,application categories may be modified in accordance with a particularuser. More specifically, a particular set, Set N, of applications may beakin to search results produced by a search engine, that is, thoseparticular applications, based on the data mind, may be most likely thepreferred applications for that particular user. Such data mined mayinclude prior use of applications, user preferences, or the like. Asecond set of applications may be paid applications, such asapplications that pay on a pay-per-click, on a click-through, or thelike. In such a circumstance, production of a particular application mayallow for calculation of a click-through rate, from which an amount owedby the application provider may be calculated. Likewise, an applicationset may be divided based upon segmentation. In the current art,segmentation occurs by the siloing of particular key words, such thatmany advertisers aren't competing on the same page, for example.Applications and/or content may be similarly segmented in accordancewith the enhancement engine of the present invention.

Further, in certain exemplary embodiments in which a selectedapplication or category of applications is an advertising provisionapplication, applications may be categorized based on typical relevanceor frequency of clicking, such as wherein typically not relevant orinfrequently clicked advertisements must pay more per click orclick-through to be provided to a user. Correspondingly, a certain setof applications and/or advertisement applications may be used to assesstypical relevance, or frequency of selection. For example, a particularsubset of applications, advertising applications, advertisements, or thelike may be randomly rotated by the enhancement engine of the presentinvention. The random rotation may allow for a measure of the actualpopularity, actual relevance, or frequency of acceptability ofparticular applications and/or advertisements. For example, a particularapplication may be run for all users having cookies indicating that theusers are golfers, but the category of applications served, may, inaccordance with the response received, indicate that a particularapplication or advertisement is actually most popular with femalegolfers in the state of California. Thereby, a subset of applicationsand/or advertisements may be randomly provided, or randomly provided toa particular subset of users, in order to obtain an indication of microsegmentation as discussed herein.

Additionally and alternatively, the enhancement engine may provide acategory or subset of applications that are locked, that is, that arealways provided in certain circumstances. For example, such lockedapplications may always be provided to particular users, may always beprovided to particular users on particular websites, or may always beprovided when the content is of a particular topic, due to the fact thatthe provider of the application is providing some value to the websiteprovider and/or the enhancement engine.

Yet further, a subset of applications may be selectable by the user. Forexample, the enhancement engine may provide an “app store,” whereby theuser can scroll, such as to the right, left, up, or down, and viewapplications that are recommended for that user, that have been popularwith other users of that type, that fit particular cost criteria, orthat the user has used most frequently in the past, for example.

Thus, as discussed hereinabove with respect to FIG. 3, an applicationmay be an advertisement application, or simply and advertisement, inaccordance with the present invention thereby, an application may betailored to only certain users, or only certain users on certain pages,or only on certain pages of a website, or only for certain content, but,because the application is an advertisement, the present inventionprovides a contextually relevant application advertisement to users.Further, because the enhancement engine allows for a dynamic mining ofInquiry A regarding content produced, an advertiser can design anapplication that can target content related to all NFL players, or onlyone particular player, or only one particular team, or only oneparticular player and only in the New York Times, or only one particularplayer to particular fan types of that player on the New York Times, inaccordance with the present invention. Such targeted advertising is notpresently available in the current art.

As such, the enhancement engine may function as an optimizing ad server.Historically, ad servers inquired only as to user preferences andcontent consumed. In contrast, the ad server of the present inventionmay perform a heuristic analysis of a particular web page, and thus isuser sensitive, content sensitive, and context sensitive. For example,in the above example of the current art, information as betweenamazon.com and the Amazon rain forest is indistinguishable with regardto a typical ad server. However, the heuristic analysis of the presentinvention allows for a context sensitivity that gives insight into thedistinction between a user researching a purchase from amazon.com and auser researching the Amazon rain forest.

This heuristic analysis may allow for selection of a particularapplication along Inquiry C in FIG. 3, and/or for selection of aparticular application set. For example, a user may be provided with twogaming applications, three informational applications, and one videoapplication. Different applications may be provided to the user becausethe present invention, through the heuristic analysis mentioned above,is aware of what application the user typically picks from a providedset of available applications, or what application the user hasrepeatedly picked, and further the present invention is aware of whatapplications the user is using currently, thereby enabling the serviceof advertising applications that are contextually relevant to the user'scurrent use of applications on a particular website, the content in viewon the website, and the user's known preferences.

FIG. 4A illustrates an image enhancement widget system 200 may includethree principle components. These components are a javascript component101, content 103 from the vault associated with the recommendationengine, such as content obtained by or from the talent server inclusiveof the recommendation engine, for association with and/or relation to atalent, and a flash widget 105. Each of the javascript 101 and content103 may be provided by the recommendation engine discussed hereinabove,and most preferably via the talent server within and/or associated withthe recommendation engine. The flash widget 105 may preferably beprovided by the fulfillment engine, according to instructions andcontent received from the recommendation engine.

The javascript component 101 may, for example, be a publisher-sidejavascript. The publisher side javascript may locate enhanceable imageson the publisher's webpage, and provide set up for the flash overlaywidget 105 atop the enhanceable image. Provision of the enhancement 105may be enabled by placement of, for example, a single line ofpublisher-side javascript onto the publisher website that the publisherwishes to have enhanced. The publisher-side javascript 101 may be addedto a website by the publisher in, for example, a one-time set up.Following installation, the publisher-side javascript may be furtherconfigured remotely as discussed hereinthroughout, by either thepublisher or the enhancement provider, for example.

Additionally and alternatively, a proxy server, for example, that is oris associated with the data engine or the enhancement engine discussedherein with respect to FIG. 3, may intercept the render of a page onwhich the enhancements discussed herein are permitted. The proxy servermay write in one or more lines of the aforementioned javascriptcomponent 101, either upon initial render or upon each rendering, andmay re-render the page with the javascript inserted.

In an exemplary embodiment, the javascript component 101 may identifyimages on a webpage, including enhanceable images, and including imagessubject to required criteria for enhancement, such as size ranges,aspect ratios, or the like. Upon identification of an image, thejavascript 101 may capture caption text related to the image, alternatetext (“alt-text”), and/or an image URL, for example, and may send thoseelements to the talent server and/or recommendation engine, asillustrated. Further, the javascript may display an alert to show a userthat a particular image is interactively enhanceable, such as wheninstructed to display an alert by talent server and/or recommendationengine. Further, the javascript component may enable set up of theenhancement/flash overlay widget 105, such as by specifying size,location, publisher, talent identification, menu inclusions, and thelike, when a user clicks on or mouses over an enhanceable image.Finally, the javascript component may dismiss the flash enhancementbased on an appropriate user action.

For example, the javascript response may dictate, or have dictatedthereto, one or more aspects of the enhancement 105. For example, apop-up of the offer to enhance, or a thumbnail of the enhancement, maybe inserted or ghosted onto the page. Further, the javascript may set acookie when the enhancement 105 is moused-over, opened, or closed.

In a preferred embodiment, the javascript component may not impact anexisting page layout. Neither may the flash enhancement 105, asdiscussed further hereinbelow, affect the page layout. The javascriptcomponent may include an awareness of sight specific design elements,and browser limitations, for example, such that, if unknown elements orunsupported browser aspects are encountered, the javascript componentmay dis-enable itself. Further, it is preferred that the javascript notappreciably impact load times for the publisher's site. As such, thejavascript component may begin activities only after all native websiteoperations have ended for the particular website.

The javascript component may additionally be self updating. As such, thejavascript component may change or improve over a period of time. In apreferred embodiment, the website publisher may not be responsible formaintaining the javascript component after installation, but rather thejavascript component may check for available downloads of updates at apredetermined time frame, such as daily, for example, and such as fromthe recommendation engine, for example. Yet further, the javascriptcomponent may preferably be bandwidth neutral with respect to additionaltraffic over a particular bandwidth.

Thus, the javascript component may be, authorized by a particularpublisher to enhance any page, or item on a page, that meets certaincriteria, such as a size limit, for example, that will allow forenhancement of the item on the page without obscuring the original itemor items on the page. If the criteria are met, the javascript componentmay be installed, and may awaken upon each instantiation of the page,asking for any updates to the javascript component, such as from remotelocations, such as the talent server. If no updated versions of thejavascript component are available, or after an update is downloaded,the javascript component may assess the images or items on theparticular publisher's page, such as by comparison with the criteria, inorder to assess which of the images or items may be enhanced. Upon theassessment of which images or items are authorized for enhancement, thejavascript component may optionally download the images or items, orcertain of the images or items, as a background for the enhancement. Thejavascript component may then read a text string, such as from an xvheader, and may send the information read to a remote location, such asthe talent server. The xv header may include, for example, a pix size,an image source, and/or associated textual information, for example. Thejavascript component may, either prior to sending the information to thetalent server, or as information is sent to the talent server, provideto the talent server information related to the reading of the textstring, and/or to the assessment of the application of the criteria forthe enhancement, for example.

As used herein, the talent server may be or include, individually or inthe aggregate, the vault discussed herein and the recommendation engine,wherein the recommendation engine may also serve to authorizeenhancements in accordance with certain criteria. The talent server maycommunicate with the publisher's side javascript component and the flashenhancement widget. When communicating with the publisher's sidejavascript component, the talent server may manage all communications toand from the javascript component, download images and/or read headerfiles for image or item information, recognize particular talent orentities using header files and all image descriptive texts, indicate toa talent server side javascript the names of talents, certainidentifications, such as of image locations, and other requiredinformation for the calling of the flash enhancement, download sitespecific enhancements, and/or provide cache and similar storage, amongother functions. The talent server may store, such as in the vault, forexample, the myriad of information that may be made available throughthe flash enhancement, images and information regarding a variety oftalent, and the like, for example.

The flash enhancement widget may be a dynamically sized micro site thatmay use a host image as background in order to provide additionalinformation, preferably related to the subject of the host image, forexample. The flash widget may be configured as an overlay, a cascade outof an image into a fixed size and/or relative position, a dropdown menuor series of dropdown menus, and/or an expandable menu or series ofexpandable menus, or the like. The flash widget provides additional,contextually relevant content regarding the talent featured in aneditorial image or item. Through the provision of this contextuallyrelevant content, users may spend additional time on a particularpublisher's page. Further, a contextually relevant advertisingopportunity may be provided.

The micro site nature of the flash widget may enable various and diversefunctionality. This functionality may be dynamically sized and/ormodified, such as to fit dimensions, aspect ratios, page location, andthe like, of a particular image, and/or to fit similar criteria setforth by the publisher. Likewise, in order to avoid interference withthe surrounding webpage, the flash component may have opaque,translucent, and/or transparent components, may continue to display theunderlying image, may display the names of the talent discovered in theimage, and may have a close, or “X,” button, in order to dismiss theflash widget and return to the original view of the underlying image.

Moreover, the micro-site nature may allow for re-direct functionality.For example, and as discussed further below, a request within theenhancement for an article, such as is discussed below with respect toFIG. 8, may provide a re-direct to the site where the article isprovided. The location of the article may be stored at the data enginediscussed above with respect to FIG. 3 (and, correspondingly, withrespect to the recommendation and/or talent engines discussed herein).Additionally, the micro-site nature may allow for an outright dismissalof the enhancement by a user, which may cause the disabling of thejavascript component 101, and consequent access to only the underlyingsite content. For example, disabling/dismissal of the enhancement maycause the clicking of a picture on the site to simply execute a quickscroll on that page to the article text to which the picture relates.

In an exemplary embodiment, and in order to fit a dynamic sizing of aneditorial image, a widget may be available from the talent server inmultiple modes, such as small, medium and large. Upon loading, the flashwidget may select the particular mode, and may self-size to the exactdimensions of the underlying image, or of the expanded image, asdesired. By way of example, a small mode may be 300×250 pixels, a mediummode may be 400×300 pixels, and a large mode may be 600×400 pixels,wherein the mode selected is that mode which best approximates the sizeof the underlying picture.

Further, it is often the case that an editorial image may include morethan one talent, or a caption associated with an editorial image mayrefer to more than one talent. Thus, the flash widget may provide, forexample, interactivity, such as a dropdown interface, to allow a user toselect what talent to browse in the particular image. Thus, the flashwidget may provide a micro site for each subject talent in a particulareditorial image including multiple talents. Needless to say, the talentplaced at the top of such a dropdown interface may vary based on whichtalent is being most frequently selected by users with respect to theparticular associated editorial image, for example.

The assessment of the subject or subjects of an editorial image may bemade, as referenced above, by the javascript component, and may also bemade or partially made by the talent server that provides the flashwidget. For example, as discussed above, the flash widget may beprovided in accordance with information in a header, but, in the eventinsufficient information is provided in the header, a publisher mayprovide alt-text, that is, publisher captions, to provide the necessaryinformation, or the javascript can estimate on behalf of the flashwidget, such as by reading the entire page and assuming that which isclosest to the editorial image is a caption, and the closest captionpresumptively includes information on the editorial image.

It almost goes without saying that the present invention overcomessignificant bandwidth limitations. For example, it is desirable that thejavascript component may do a significant amount of processing, or thatthe processing may be allotted to the talent server, or that thejavascript may be updated on a less frequent basis, for example.Further, by use of the javascript component to read the page header, itis the publisher's site bandwidth, rather than the talent serverbandwidth, that will be used in order to assess the enhanceability ofall images. Finally, bandwidth may be conserved by allowing the user tofirst instruct that certain processing occur, rather than doing soautomatically. For example, the micro site flash download may only beprovided if a user clicks, for example, a button indicating that theeditorial image is interactive. Further, in order to provide additionaltime for download of the flash enhancement and/or to provide additionalrevenue, advertising or the like may be downloaded and/or shown to arequesting user as the interactivity is downloaded.

Thus, the present invention may allow for the ready installation of thejavascript component, such as on a site HTML template. Relatedinformation and/or related articles referencing a selected image, ormultiple such methodologies, may be selected, such as the selection ofRSS feeds. The settings for an enhancement may be selected, such as thecriteria and/or content of such enhancements. Further, a publisher mayselect the look and feel of a particular flash overlay widget, forexample.

For example, a publisher may select, as to look and feel of an overlaywidget, colors, textures, images, button layouts, sizes, shapes, and thelike. Further, certain components may be selected as only conditionallyshown to users, when certain conditions are met. Additionally, theenhancement widget may include a menu, and the menu may be constant,placed in certain positions, or float to increase convenience of use.Further, publishers may select the criteria for production of theenhancement, such as minimum or maximum image sizes available forenhancement, sites, pages, page sections or site sections available forenhancement, use of a floating widget for particularly small images, orthe like. Thereby, a publisher may select a look and feel most likely tosustain interest from users of that particular publisher, which, ofcourse, are the users that publisher will know best. Thereby, thepublisher's contributions, in conjunction with the present invention,are likely to increase user exposure to publisher's content.

This exposure may be further enhanced by providing, such as through theflash enhancement widget, links to related stories or images usingexisting RSS feeds, search and content management capabilities, and thelike, which may be provided by the publisher or a third party, and whichmay be provided from that publisher website, or other websitesassociated with that publisher, for example. Further, user exposure maybe additionally maintained through integration of, for example, thirdparty information, such as third party images, videos, statistics, andthe like, including, for example, the metrics discussed hereinabove withrespect to FIGS. 1 and 2. Needless to say, increased time on a page viewmay additionally provide increased revenue for the provider of the page,particularly in light of the fact that the present invention may beprovided at no cost to the publisher.

Revenue may increase to the publisher not solely in light of increaseduser engagement and lack of technology investment, development, orprovision costs. Publishers may additionally receive value throughaccess to information regarding subject talent of images used on thatpublisher's website, such as the aforementioned metrics of that talentreceived from, for example, the talent server, as assessed acrossmultiple websites. Further, the publisher may receive a revenue share onecommerce transactions related to, for example, advertising provided inconjunction with the flash enhancement. The provider of the flashenhancement may provide this advertising, such as from the talentserver, thereby providing an exclusive advertisement position forenhanced images for the provider of the flash enhancement. Further, theprovider of the flash enhancement may receive a share of other ecommercetransactions related to the flash enhancement, and may further receivebranding and/or links made available through the flash enhancement.

More particularly, the flash enhancement may be ecommerce enabled. Forexample, shopping support may be provided from third party on-lineshopping providers, which third party providers may be relevant to thesubject of the editorial image. For example, an on-line team fan shopmay be provided as shopping support through an advertisement placed in aflash enhancement widget related to a talent in an image that plays forthe team associated with the team fan shop. Likewise, ticket purchasingadvertisements, either by teams or third party providers, such as StubHub, may be highly targeted to users who have selected to view a flashenhancement related to a subject talent on the particular team for whichtickets are offered. Real and virtual sales, memorabilia, clothing, andthe like may be provided in association with the flash enhancementadvertising. Of course, sponsorships may also be provided in associationwith the flash widget, thus providing another opportunity foradvertising revenue in association with the flash enhancement.

Thus, in an exemplary embodiment, responsive to the javascript componentand information assessed by the talent server, the flash enhancement mayprovide a myriad of information with respect to the subject of aneditorial image, such as a professional athlete, in a format selected bythe publisher of the site containing the editorial image. For example, aseries of clickable menu buttons may be provided via the flashenhancement, wherein each button includes information related to aprofessional athlete shown in the editorial image on which the flashenhancement is overlayed. Such a clickable menu may provide informationon the professional athlete such as biographic information, backgroundinformation, statistics, team information, such as box scores andstandings, and the like. Further, social information may be provided onthe athlete, such as the buzz and/or metrics associated with theathlete, recent postings by or about the athlete, real or virtualmemorabilia, and/or advertising or media metrics wherefrom an assessmentmay be made of the propriety of using the subject player as an endorserfor advertising, for example. Of course, a social rating may be combinedwith a “heat” rating and/or an achievement rating, as discussed above.Thereby, talent may be rated by an overall, combined score, or by acategorical score.

The information provided in relation to the player may be highlytargeted, such as by making use of related articles: or feeds from thepublisher of the site under enhancement, or from other sites by thatpublisher, internal or external related articles, relevant blogs or blogpostings by the player or fans of the player, or other images of theplayer, for example. The social engagement in relation to the athletemay allow for reference to the athlete's social websites available tothe public, or chatter about the athlete on social sites, recent blogsor postings about the athlete on social sites, or addition of theathlete, or a widget associated with the athlete, for example, to auser's social site, for example. Likewise, shopping, sweepstakes,trivia, and fantasy sports support and/or integration may be madeavailable with reference to the particular athlete.

More particularly, FIG. 4B is a block diagram illustrating an exchangeof metadata that may allow, for example, a flash shell, such as thatcorrespondent to the aforementioned flash widget, to institute anenhancement (by the enhancement engine) as indicated by the javacomponent 101, such as Java script, such as a Java script header,associated with the particular web page on which the enhancement is tobe instituted. As illustrated in FIG. 4B, a header and footer, such asthe Java script header, may be placed on a particular web page toprovide indications with regard to content on the web page, wherein theheader and footer may indicate a brand or talent on the page, a locationand/or context of the content relating to the brand or talent, a user oruser preferences, the particular site of the page at issue, andpreferably the objects or content on the page that are to be subject toenhancement. Java component 101 may execute the passing of this headerand footer information, such as in metadata format, to the enhancementengine discussed herein. If the header and footer information indicatethat a particular object requested by a user may be subject toenhancement, metadata may be returned from the enhancement engine, asmay be additional content, to enhance the requested object.

More particularly, in an exemplary embodiment such as that illustratedin FIG. 4B, the execution of an enhancement may launch a Flash shell.The Flash shell, in a preferred embodiment, launches and enhances onlythe object or content, and/or only objects or content with respect tocertain key word(s), and/or only content that is otherwise available tobe enhanced, according to the decision of the enhancement engine.Correspondingly, the user may hit the back button at any time to returnto an initial application, or may hit the back button repeatedly toreturn to the unenhanced page, for example.

In particular embodiments, the Flash shell may not elect what content torun as part of an enhancement. Rather, the enhancement engine mayremotely elect what content to provide, and/or what application to run,as an enhancement on the web page on which the user is requestingcontent. This is in stark contrast to the prior art, wherein theelection of particular applications to run on a subject page isgenerally made locally to the page, or by producers of the page.

The Flash shell may reach out into the network over which the presentinvention operates, to thereby access the enhancement engine as an“application selector.” For example, the application selector may beconnected to an application database engine, wherein multipleapplications are available for accessing by the application selector.The application selector may create static application files, that is,the Flash shell may pull, in accordance with an instruction from theenhancement engine, static sets of applications comprising, for example,application numbers 1, 19 and 34, from the application database. Thesestatic files may be bound in the Flash shell as the Flash shell requestis served to the user pursuant to an indication that content requestedby the user is to be enhanced.

More particularly, one or more applications may be loaded within theFlash shell, and the Flash shell and the one or more applications arethus in continuous communication. Further, the Flash shell may, incertain embodiments, be in initial or continuous communication with theenhancement engine that has indicated that the Flash shell is to beprovided. Thereby, the Flash shell, and consequently the user, maycommunicate with the one or more applications provided through theenhancement engine acting as a remote communications conduit. The Flashshell may be put in the foreground or the background for particularapplications, subject to instruction from the enhancement engine.

In a specific example, if a user selects content, and is, given severaloptions for enhancement applications to be associated with the selectedcontent, the user may select a first application/enhancement content inthe form of a “Podcast.” The Flash shell may consequently need toprovide a podcast player application, such as in order to allow the userto view the Podcast. Further, for example, the desired podcast playerapplication may be a proprietary third party video player application.

With regard to this example, a first application may notify theenhancement engine of a third party application required to play therequested application. Thus for example, a marketplace may be createdwhereby a first application (the Podcast above) may request the use of asecond application (the proprietary video player application above),which may be owned, patented, developed, or the like by third party. Thethird party and the producer of the requesting application, or theprovider of the content to be enhanced, or the provider of the web pageto be enhanced, may negotiate the use of the proprietary video playerwith the requested application. Of course, this negotiation may beundertaken through an initial interaction between the enhancement engineand the application developers illustrated in FIG. 3, such as when theapplications are submitted for use by the enhancement engine.

If the provider of the proprietary video player in the example aboveaccepts that the video player may be used with the requestingapplication, a global unique identifier (GUID) may be provided to therequesting application, wherein such GUIDs are tracked as identifying arequesting application that is entitled to access the proprietary videoplayer. Thereby, for example, the underlying video player may reside inan application data base, and have associated therewith 5, for example,GUIDs that indicate applications identified by the respective GUIDs aseligible to call the proprietary video player without, for example,additional payments. Needless to say, the proprietary video player andPodcast are used solely herein by way of illustrative example.

Those skilled in the art will appreciate that requested content andapplications, and any required additional applications, may be providedto a user via a late stage bind, wherein only keyed GUIDs may callparticular applications. The keyed GUIDs may solely call theapplications pursuant to possession of a proper GUID, that is, callingapplications may generally not gain access to additional or proprietaryaspects of called applications, and may have no rights in calledapplications other than to call the called applications. In this manner,pop-out applications may be provided that may be dependant on, or thatmay be independent from, particular web pages, and, to the extent theapplications are independent, such pop-out applications may be carriedacross multiple web pages.

By way of yet a more specific, non-limiting example, a provider oftelevisions may have recently won an award for its television sets. Thepresent invention may provide enhancements to requested content, whereinthe enhancements require playing on a video player application. Theprovided video player application may have an agreement to be providedin accordance with certain requested content, such as in conjunctionwith another requested application, and may or may not be the exclusivevideo player for all videos played. Further, the provided video playerapplication may have the aforementioned television manufacturer as asponsor, wherein, with each play of a requested video via the videoplayer application, a banner ad, an advertisement, or an advertisementapplication may be provided, pointing out that the televisionmanufacturer is the winner of a significant award. Yet further, thetelevision manufacturer may be, in fact, the provider of the providedvideo player application. Thereby, the television manufacturer may playits advertisement and its application in conjunction.

In light of the discussion above, those skilled in the art willappreciate that multiple applications may be provided for the same orsimilar content requested by a user. As such, a contextual menu may beprovided for all available applications available for enhancements onthe subject page. For example, each available application may beincluded in a scroll bar, wherein the user may select the desiredapplication with respect to the requested content. Each offeredapplication may include an “About” screen or similar indicator of theapplication and what it does, wherein the “About” screen for theapplication may be produced upon selection of the application, as apop-up when the application is moused-over, or the like. Advertisementsmay similarly be provided via pop-up or mouse-over of the applications,for example.

Applications may include simplified applications that are variations ofsmart phone applications, for example. Further, the providers of suchapplications having correspondent smart phone applications may include,within the applications provided, a referral to the correspondent smartphone application for use by the user on the user's smart phone. Uponselection of an application provided for enhancement, a user may beenabled to rate the application and/or an enhancement in accordance withthe present invention, and/or any correspondent applications, such as asmart phone application, that the user may have used, and such ratingsmay be fed back to the enhancement engine to allow for improvedapplication selection, such as with regard to users having particularpreferences or the like.

FIGS. 5-14 illustrate an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.FIG. 5 illustrates an editorial image provided in association with apublisher's website. FIG. 6 illustrates that the subject editorial imagemay be optionally enlarged, such as upon clicking or mouse over, toenable use of the flash enhancement widget of the present invention.FIG. 7 illustrates a flash enhancement overlay placed atop the subjecteditorial image selected for enhancement. Of note, the overlayillustrates a top level sponsor for the enhanced overlay. Further, theoverlay as illustrated includes information regarding the player, theteam of the player, social aspects related to the player, shoppingrelated to the player, and interaction with and about the player.Further provided is a branding and/or link to the provider of the flashenhancement.

FIG. 8 illustrates a mouse over or similar selection by a user of theplayer tab of the enhancement overlay. Selection of the tab may allowfor presentation of numerous options with regard to the player, such asthe biography of the player, statistics of the player, articles relatedto the player, chatter about the player, and other images, audio, orvideo related to the player, for example. The statistics of the playermay include, for example, game and career statistics for the player,scores or articles about the most recent game in which the player hasplayed, and the like. FIG. 9 illustrates the selection of chatter aboutthe player. As illustrated, chatter may monitor mentions of the user oncertain subject sites, or across many websites, and may additionallymonitor whether such mentions are positive or negative, i.e. maymetricize such mentions as discussed hereinabove with respect to FIGS. 1and 2.

The player illustrated in FIG. 8 plays for a team in New Orleans, La.,and thus, it would not be surprising that the media rating, and/ormetrics, of the player would be higher in New Orleans than in the restof the United States. This is illustrated in FIG. 9. Further, themetrics may track chatter about a subject talent over time, asillustrated. The metrics provided may vary based on the flashenhancement selected to be provided. For example, a small sized flashoverlay may provide simply a local and national on-line ranking for aselected talent. However, a medium overlay may additionally include agraph of a national and local ranking of the talent for a particulartime period, such as over the proceeding three, months. Finally, forlarge sized overlays, mouse over effects may be provided, such asshowing specific ratings at given points on a ratings graph.

FIG. 10 illustrates a selection, or mouse over, of a social tab in theflash enhancement. Selection of the social tab may provide, for example,a series of aspects related to socializations of the player. Forexample, social network sites provided by or for the player may beaccessible, as may be mentions associated with particular socialnetworks about the player. Further, for example, recent posts on asocial site about a talent featured in the editorial image may beprovided, such as an association with a logo or link regarding thesubject social network site. Additionally and alternatively, a summaryof that talent on a social network site, such as a profile icon and/orsummary of a profile of the subject talent, may be provided from thesocial network site. FIG. 11 illustrates an exemplary social summarywith regard to the subject of the editorial image. As illustrated,social interactions of the talent may be tracked, and additionallystatistics regarding mentions of the talent and the like may beprovided.

FIG. 12 illustrates a selection and/or mouse over by a user of theinteraction tab of the flash enhancement. The interaction tab mayprovide a plurality of interactions related to the subject talent of theeditorial image, such as downloads related to the talent, sweepstakesrelated to the talent, fan clubs of the talent, chat with or about thetalent, trivia related to the talent or an entity associated with thetalent, or the like. For example, as illustrated in FIG. 13, a user mayelect to enter a contest or sweepstakes associated with the subjecttalent. Further, as illustrated in FIG. 13 and as referenced hereinabovewith each aspect of the flash enhancement overlay, portions of the flashenhancement provided may be transparent or translucent, such as in orderto allow continuous presence as background of the original editorialimage.

As illustrated in FIG. 14, a sponsor may be provided for the flashenhancement. The sponsor may be selectable by a user, at which time anadvertisement associated with the sponsor, and/or featuring the subjecttalent of the advertisement, may be provided to the user. Additionallyand alternatively, a banner ad may be provided within, or associatedwith, the flash enhancement widget. In a preferred embodiment and inorder to avoid conflicting advertisements, it may be necessary that,when an advertisement or banner advertisement is displayed in accordancewith the flash enhancement widget, underlying advertisements and/orimages may, contrary to that discussed above, not be visible to theuser.

In an exemplary flow of the present invention, when a user on a web pageplaces a cursor over a subject of interest in a particular article, themention may be formatted as an enhanced flash media widget, such aswherein the mouse-over causes execution of widgetized code to provide awidget specifically designed for association with a reference to thesubject of interest. Such a widget may provide additional informationregarding the subject of interest, advertising endorsed by or otherwiseassociated with the subject of interest, desirable and/or free content,content from and/or stored in the vault discussed hereinabove, or anycombination thereof, for example. Thereby, revenue gained through theprovision of the subject widget, such as from click-throughs onadvertising provided in association with the widget, may be sharedbetween the provider of the widget and the site provider that allowedplacement of the enhanced media, for example.

More specifically, the enhanced media may link to a particular item,and/or may provide access to different optional items, such as byprovision of tabs in association with the widget provided correspondentto the mouse over. Advertising and other enhanced content may beprovided from inventory in the vault. Thereby, revenue sharing betweenone or more of the advertising entity, the subject of interest, and thesite provider may be made available through the use of the presentinvention.

Those skilled in the art will appreciate, in light of the disclosureherein, that the present invention is thus highly useful to all partiesin the aforementioned widget transaction. For example, the advertisercan obtain new advertising inventory by placement of the enhanced media.By way of further example, the site provider may incur additional richmedia that may be placed on the site without cost to the site provider,and that, in fact, may provide additional revenue to the site provider.Such rich media, due to the use of a widget in the present invention,may include the widgetization of desirable content, such as the flippingof Getty images like trading cards, with statistical information on theback of trading card, for example. Finally, the present invention provesuseful to the subject of interest in the enhanced media, particularly inembodiments wherein an advertisement for which the subject of interestis an endorser is provided. From the provision of the endorsedadvertisement, the subject of interest generates revenue when a useracts on the advertisement.

Although the invention has been described and pictured in an exemplaryform with a certain degree of particularity, it is understood that thepresent disclosure of the exemplary form has been made by way ofexample, and that numerous changes in the details of construction andcombination and arrangement of parts and steps may be made withoutdeparting from the spirit and scope of the invention.

What is claimed is:
 1. A system for enhancing content on a web page,comprising: a server computer with a computing processor and operativeto communicatively couple the processor to a user device over a datacommunication network, and with a computer readable storage device indata communication with the processor and having stored thereon computerreadable instructions which, when executed on the processor, cause theserver computer to implement: an enhancement engine operative to:receive from the user device a header containing metadata indicative ofa subject of enhanceable content on a web page displayed on the userdevice; obtain information of the subject of the enhanceable content;obtain from the user device information including a device type of theuser device and a user preference; provide a link to each of a set ofavailable applications able to operate on the information of the subjectof the enhanceable content; receive from the user device anautomatically generated request for an enhancement of the enhanceablecontent on the web page, the request based on execution of a userselected one of the applications; provide to the user device selectedcontent for display in accordance with the user selected application, ina frame overlaid on the web page, the frame size and resolution based atleast in part on the user device type and the user preferences; refrainfrom obtaining information that may be embedded in digital objectsincluded in the web page; a content vault having resident thereindigital content associated with a plurality of subjects; a query engineoperative to search the content vault and online third party sources ofinformation for digital content associated with the subject of theenhanceable content and return located content, responsive to therequest for an enhancement received from the user device; arecommendation engine operative to automatically select, from thecontent returned by the query engine, a content item for use in therequested enhancement, based on the user selected application, the userdevice type, and the user preferences; and a fulfillment engineoperative to format the selected content for delivery to the user devicefor display in the frame overlaid on the web page, as the requestedenhancement.
 2. The system of claim 1, wherein the application providesan advertisement.
 3. The system of claim 1, wherein the enhancementengine further provides a menu for display on the user device, whereinthe plurality of available applications populates said menu.
 4. Thesystem of claim 1, wherein the set of applications is a static set ofavailable applications.
 5. The system of claim 1, wherein the userdevice is a smart phone and the selected application is a smart phoneapplication.